Many businesses are finding it an ever growing challenge to provide responsive customer support and service in a cost effective manner. This challenge is even greater when a business faces spikes in demand for its services. For example, a business may face spikes in demand for customer support or services at specific times of the year (e.g., a florist may see a spike in orders on Valentine's Day or a retailer may see increased demand during the holidays). In other cases, a business might see a spike in customer support requests when new products or services are introduced. At other times, these spikes may occur unexpectedly. For instance, a television provider may experience a spike in repair requests in the aftermath of a sudden storm that disrupts television service. These spikes can easily overwhelm the capacity for the business' own staff to respond. In many cases, a business has to balance the cost of maintaining a certain level of support staff against anticipated customer demand. Traditionally, when faced with this situation, a business can contract for additional customer support agents in third-party call centers to meet the demand. However, the traditional process for initiating the use of such a call center is often expensive, complex, and time consuming. In the meantime, any delay by the business in responding to increased customer demand can lead to dissatisfied customers, increased complaints, or even lost business.
In parallel, communications service providers are continually challenged to develop new services and features to remain competitive and to develop new sources of revenue.
Therefore, there is a need for an approach that provides for rapid and efficient establishment of a call center to assist an organization in responding to the needs of its customers, while creating a new source of revenue for communication service providers.